Welcome to Ingels History

My name is Mark Ingels and over the past several years my father Jerry Ingels and I traced our ancestry and we are hoping that this page will centralize all of the information that we have gathered. Our goal is that others interested in the same information will find this page useful and we hope to get contributions from anyone that can help expand our archive.

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Ingels Origins

The origin of the Ingels/Ingles/Inglis surname has Norse roots, deriving from either of two Old Norse personal names "Ingjaldr" (Ill Ruler) or from "Inglfr" (Ing's wolf). Vikings acquired settlements in the 9th century in Scotland and it was from this group that the family name Ingels/Ingles/Inglis originates.

The Inglis surname emerged as a ﻿Scottish﻿ Clan or family in the northern territory of Huntingdon where they were recorded as a family of great antiquity seated with manor and estates in that shire. The family claim descent from a Danish invader of the Danelaw, held before the Norman invasion of England (1066). By the 13th century they had branched into neighboring Ingleby, Derby, Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex counties where they flourished and became a distinguished southeastern English family name.

It looks likely that our Ingels surname derived from Ingles, which in turn derived from Inglis. Evidence also shows that a branch of the Ingles line changed their surname to English in the late 1700's after coming to North America. This English branch seemed to have migrated into the southern states. Documents linked to Thomas Ingles & his family in Virginia show the name Ingles & English used interchangeably.

Where do our Ingels come from?

DNA evidence points to our lineal descendant coming from Scandinavia, most likely Denmark. He would have crossed the North Sea by ship into Scotland.

In Trans-Allegheny Pioneers from Thomas Ingles great grandson in 1851: "My great grandfather, Thomas Ingles , was a merchant of Dublin, Ireland, who, upon suspicion of entertaining liberal principles and engaging in a rebellion him and his two sons were sent as convicts to Wales from whence they made their escape to the United States, my grandfather William Ingles being one of the number, they came first to Pennsylvania and from there to this country."

From John Hale, great grandson of William Ingles, and author of Trans-Allegheny Pioneers(1884), describes the Ingles family this way: "Thomas Ingles, according to family tradition, was descended from a Scotch family, was born and reared in London, lived about 1730 to 1740, in Dublin, Ireland, was a large importing wholesale merchant, was wealthy, owned his own ships and traded with foreign countries, chiefly to the East Indies."